Parenting is not for the weak of heart! First lets consider some famous quotations about the subject before we dive into a parent’s role in guiding his children through the challenging and exciting waters of modern technology.

• Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.  ~John Wilmot
• The trouble with learning to parent on the job is that your child is the teacher.  ~Robert Brault
• To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.  ~Josh Billings
• Your children need your presence more than your presents.  ~Jesse Jackson
• Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.  ~Robert Fulghum
• It behooves a father to be blameless if he expects his child to be.  ~Homer
• The trouble with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are unemployed.  ~Author Unknown

No one wants to “claim victory” in the job of parenting and I certainly am no exception. But I see the need to share with parents some concerns and guidelines when it comes to Worthwhile Parenting in the Information Age. We live in a world with an explosion of information! We have access to more and more information at the click of a mouse or touch of a finger or soon perhaps, the thinking of a thought! Does this impact how we parent? If not, then in my opinion we are missing out of some of our responsibility to “train up a child in the way he should go”, as admonished in the Bible. My desire here is to help parents have a “partnership in the gospel” (Phil 1:3-6) as the seek to raise godly children in an ungodly world. This is one of the biggest benefits of being part of a good, Bible teaching, Gospel preaching local church!

My desire is to encourage Christian parents to set their children on a lifelong pursuit of fulfilling Proverbs 4:23 – “Guard your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” We need this first in our own lives and then in the lives of our children!

Most of this information is delivered to us via technology. So is technology the source of the problems or simply a magnifier of them? Is technology something new that we have to deal with but our parents and grandparents did not? Of course not! Technology is simply the accumulation of knowledge and the application of that knowledge to building tools and solving problems. As Christian parents, those wanting to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and bring up our children to have an eternal relationship through Him with God – their Creator, we need to be careful to not follow the world’s teaching that technology demonstrates that man is getting better and better and will one day usher in a perfect world. This is evolutionary teaching and does not start from the mind of God, as revealed in the Bible, but starts with human reasoning. Man is not getting more intelligent. In fact, at the Creation, man was at his highest level of intelligence – before the Fall. Corruption, death, disease, and sin have all taken a negative toll on man, including his intelligence. Modern man only appears more intelligent because of technology – the accumulation of information.

Scripture has much to say about information and knowledge. Adam and Eve where clearly told by God to stay away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They choose to disobey. Tragic consequences from which we have the Gospel – the good news that God had a plan for our redemption! Proverbs is filled with references to knowledge. The knowledge of God is a life long pursuit for the child of God. As parents we seek to educate our children using information. For centuries access to “all the world’s information” was impossible in one’s lifetime. Now, with technologies like the Internet, we have access to more information in a single day than our forefathers had in their entire lifetime!

Just consider your own experience with computers. My first computer had 48K bytes of memory and could store 128K bytes on a disk. My current computer has 4G bytes of memory and can store 1T bytes on disk. For those curious about the relative size of kilo-bytes and mega-bytes and tera-bytes, I recommend Powers of Ten.

Not to get too technical here, but information, digital information, the stuff the computers deal with, is stored using lots of 1’s and 0’s. The term we use is BITS, a binary digit. So all information that is available today on the Internet, such as photos, blog pages, ipod music, youTube videos, WallStreet stock performance, all has its basis in the BIT. I like to call it the “bit world” or the “bit business”. It refers to all things digital. And it’s a world that is changing our very economy, our education, our entertainment and yes, our parenting! Most children are probably far more exposed and comfortable with this digital information. As parents, we must not relegate our responsibility of teaching our children how to deal with this recent knowledge explosion to the world. The results would not be pretty!

My desire here is to elevate the awareness to parents that the information age presents both opportunity for good and evil for our children. I personally believe that no thing in this world is inherently evil or good. God is the creator of that is. Evil comes in the way in which we use the things God has created & our attitude toward those things. People have the capacity for evil actions and because of the power of the Gospel, good actions. The difference is a matter of choice – choices driven by information. The information your children have access to will impact their choices. In the bit world we have a phrase “garbage in, garbage out”. The results you get from a computer will be only as good as the information you put into the computer. People are similar when it comes to the knowledge they have been taught. Teach a kid he is an evolutionary accident, a result of random processes and chemical reactions which have been occurring over the past 4 billion years and you will get an adult who has no sense of accountability or responsibility and will live life for himself. In contrast teach a kid he was created in the image of God and that his life has purpose through Jesus Christ and you will get an adult who has a completely different outlook! So information matters!

If you agree that information matters in the life of your child and the Internet is a huge source of information – both good and evil, then as a parent you must take charge of how your child interfaces with this technology. We must teach our children

• what God’s Word teaches about information
• how to discern between good and evil
• how to guard their heart against the many forms of wickedness found on the Internet
• how to make God honoring choices on their use of technology
• technology produces tools which can be used both for good or evil
• technology tools can be used effectively for the spread of the Gospel

A little background on where the Internet is heading will provide parents with an understanding of what they have to deal with. During the 90’s the Internet was a place to find information via web pages. They made up “the Web”. For the most part these were very much like newspapers and magazines. This age of the Internet was coined “the read only web” because while it was very easy to read web pages, it was most difficult to write them. Starting in the early 2000’s it became easier for anyone to publish digital information via the Web. This is referred to as Web 2.0 and called “the read/write web”. This has generated an explosion of the amount of information. This is the technology which has brought us things like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, blogs, & Twitter.

Suggested parenting activities to help your teens

• filter all internet access (home, friends, phone)
• give your teen a biblical perspective on information
• randomly inspect their tweets, texts, facebook (make them give you their password, but promise not to post on their behalf)
• give your teen a biblical perspective on trust
• ban MySpace!
• have constructive conversations with your teen (ask the 4 age old parenting questions)
• no computer in the bedroom
• teach discernment
• tools to help monitor facebook activity
• ask your teen “how do you know so and so?”

How does a parent protect his children from the worthless parts of the Internet while teaching him how to use and learn from the worthwhile parts? I like analogies. They help folks understand things they don’t understand by connecting them to things they do. Back in my teenage days, good parents had a set of 4 questions they would ask their teen before she was allowed to go out for the evening.

• What are you wearing?
• Where are you going?
• Who are you going with?
• When are you coming home?

These questions should the parent was concerned about their child and wanted to protect them from evil companions while at the same time allowing them to grow up to make worthwhile choices. I’d like to suggest applying these same questions to our teens’ use of the Internet.

• What are you wearing = what are you publishing in your profiles, photos, blogs, videos?
• Where are you going = what websites are you accessing?
• Who are you going with – who are your online friends?
• When are you coming home = how long will you be online?

When you start asking these questions, be ready for the one of the most commonly used arguments from teens to parents – BUT YOU DON’T TRUST ME! Answer: According to Scripture, I cannot trust myself! Jeremiah 17, Thus says the LORD:

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.“ – Jer 17

In Mark 7 Jesus said “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

So the answer to “you don’t trust me” is a resounding CORRECT! And I don’t trust myself. That’s one of the reasons I belong to a good local church – accountability and encouragement to guard my heart.

But don’t stop here. Discuss the issue of trust and how your child can “earn trust” and of course how they “loss trust”. I have found the “trust bank” to be a tangible way to help younger children learn how trust works. I say its like a bank account (piggy bank for the younger ones). You make deposits and you make withdraws. And if you really mess up you might be bankrupt! This also provides a great way to teach lessons on money and how to deal with it biblically.

A good life lesson for parents, teachers, employers, anyone who has authority over another, is to INSPECT WHAT YOU EXPECT. In other words it is not simply enough to say “this is how to do it”, but you also need to take action, have a plan, that involves follow up to see if the job is being done right. Here are some suggestions on things you should inspect regularly (perhaps randomly) in your teen’s life regarding his/her information technology life.

• Text messages
• Emails
• Facebook friends
• Facebook profile
• Digital camera
• Ipod music
• Browser history
• Avatars

One method for getting more involved in your teenager’s life is to ask questions. We have to be a little careful and a little creative to do this effectively, but when done right our questions can be the keys which unlock our teen’s heart thus allowing us to 1) know where they are 2) help guide them in the way they should walk. I’d like to suggest you first establish some ground rules to provide your child with the safety and assurance they are going to need before they are willing to open up and answer our heart probing questions. If they feel threatened by our questioning then they will either clam up or simply give us the answers they think we want to hear. Neither scenario is very beneficial to good parenting. The book 201 Questions to Ask Your Kids gives some great advice on how to generate good conversations with your children.

I think there is an art of conversations that you can develop with your children that will allow you to teach them how to guard their heart in an evil world. Kids often shy away from conversation because

• it means trouble, not fun;
• it’s not about something they really care about;
• the questions are too broad, too hard for them to organize into any easy, focused answer
• Result? Monosyllabic answers and very short conversations.
• Agree to NOT interrupt your child’s answer!

Here are some suggested conversation questions to help you get the ball rolling regarding the Internet. I’d love to get some more feedback from parents on questions you have found worthwhile in helping your child learn how to deal with all the information & media that is blasting their world. Just add a comment to this blog post.

• What is the Internet & how does it affect my life? Can it help me? Can it hurt me?
• What’s the difference between “so called science” and technology?
• Who did you text /email /tweet/ message/ friend/ follow today?
• What do you do when someone you don’t know friends you on Facebook?
• Has anyone sent you an email that made you feel angry? Uncomfortable?

Another heart protection activity to teach your teen is biblical discernment. Hebrews 5:14 (ESV) says, “Solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” Here’s a list of things that will help be a discerning individual

• Imitate God
• Distrust your heart
• Think biblically
• Involve others

I think it all comes down to

• having a clear biblical view of information/knowledge
• having a clear biblical view of the depravity of the human heart
• having a proper parent/child relationships regarding trust
• inspecting what you expect – a fundamental parenting activity
• pray for wisdom

Finally, here are 2 resources I think will help parents

• how to ask your kids questions (from the book 201 Questions to Ask Your Kids, published by Harper Collins)
• Pure Intimacy – straight talk to parents on real issues your teens are facing with issues of sexuality (by Focus on the Family)
• Facebook Rules for Teens (by Dr Bill Lovegrove, BJU faculty)
• Christians in Cyberspace (by Dr Bill Lovegrove)
• YouDiligent - software to help monitor Facebook content

Lord bless you are seek the lifelong pursuit of fulfilling Proverbs 4:23 – “Guard your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Do it for the glory of God & the spread of the Gospel!